Black
by DG85
Summary: Robin's alive and that means bills are coming due.
1. Chapter 1

_Port Charles_

"Dodge? Jig's up. Time to let Robert catch you and when you do just tell him Anna's gone black." Not twenty minutes later came the call he knew he would get.

"Spencer? How many?"

"Two and counting, Slick. Helena and Jerry both turned up dead. McBain picked up some chatter and must have shared."

"You're sure she's responsible?"

"Double shot. Gut and then clean between the eyes. There's only one person who could get close enough to kill these two and still have the confidence and the anger to play with her prey before dispatching it. Robin's a powerful motivator, and this time the boys up stairs played Anna Devane from the wrong angle."

"Damn it, Spencer. How the hell am I supposed to keep the WSB off of her? Frisco may be heading things up now, but he's not even he's going to be able to keep her alive. They've probably already reinstated the black box. They may not be able to claim treason, but she's still an agent gone rogue for personal reasons. They'll argue that with her training, she's too dangerous to leave alive if she's gone off the handle."

"I don't think it's Slim we have to worry about. You best get to Frisco and tell him that past allegiances aren't going to keep her from gunning him down if she feels cornered, whatever deal he made with the Devil, he better find a way out of it and get Robin released. His only hope is if the WSB is no where to be found when Anna finds Robin, and tell English to run. Tell her to go to our spot and wait for me there. Thanks for covering her old friend, but her only hope now is to go underground. Anna's going to understand with time that Holly was trying to save Ethan, but right now the anger is burning too hot."

"Message received."

"Good luck, old friend."

"Same to you Spence. We're both going to need it."

_Caracas, Venezuela_

Cesar Faison was roused from his sleep by the distinct feeling of someone watching him. He had to wonder how his senses had missed their entrance. He had no more finished the thought when he realized two things: he knew who this someone was and he could not move from the neck down. Best guess was a paralytic in his nightly tea; it was refreshing to know that Anna had not lost her touch over the years, "Hello, my love. I wondered how long it would before you came to me."

"Where is she?," Anna seethed, bending over until she was inches from his face in a move that would have been sensuous had it not been done in a manner that barely concealed her cold fury.

The venom in her voice broke his heart. He instantly knew that this time he'd miscalculated. Anna the woman was not the child he'd once manipulated. He'd always blamed Scorpio for that change, but now he realized that his role in the matter was much different than he'd assumed. Scorpio was indeed responsible for the shift in his Anna, but more than her love for him it had been Scorpio's gift to her of a child that had sealed his fate. Scorpio had made Anna a mother, and Anna the mother would be his reckoning. He felt the familiar weight of a gold coin slip through the top of his silk night shirt and the unfamiliar weight of tears, and decided that his last act on Earth would be one of love, "Talk to Jones." This time Anna did not leave his fate to others, and this time there were no tears on her part. Cesar Faison closed his eyes thankful that at the very least he did not have to continue on in a world where his fantasy had shattered, and with a single bullet became the third casualty of Anna's vengeance.

_WSB Safe House – Paris, France_

Robin found that fear on Frisco's face was refreshing as was the nervousness on her father's face. She wasn't sure which revelation had hurt more that Frisco was holding her or seeing her father walk through the doors a week after her captivity started and realizing that he knew all along. They had both explained their motivations to her. They'd spun her quite the story involving Cesar Faison and how everyone's safety depended on the world thinking that Robin Scorpio was dead for now. She'd railed against them. She'd pleaded. She'd begged them not to put Emma through the pain she'd know as a child. Not to put her mother through burying another child. She'd screamed at her father asking him if he'd ever really loved her mother, and laughed at him when he claimed he was going along with this because he loved them. After Duke's baby and Leora, how could letting her mother think that she too was dead be any considered love? Then she'd turned to Frisco and asked him how it was that after what happened with Georgie, that after watching Felicia suffer, he could turn around and put another parent through the same pain unnecessarily. Their claims of the greater good fell flat, she wondered if they'd feel the same way when they had to face her mother. She'd always done her best to ignore her mother's dark side, but now as a mother herself she understood. She was the reason her mother had tried so hard for so many years to walk the straight and narrow. You always wanted your child to be proud of you, but at the same time having a child made you capable of anything. When Lisa had taken Emma, Robin had found that in the moment she'd have done things that she'd have sworn she'd never do prior to a cold November day almost four years prior if it meant saving Emma. It was that same willingness to do anything that found her willing to overlook what she knew would be happening the moment her mother walked through the door, but then she thought of Maxie and of Felicia and compassion won out, "Leave, Frisco. Go get Felicia and take off. This is a one time offer. We both know what is going to happen if Mom gets here and realizes that you had anything to do with this even if it was just in terms of containing me, but don't come back. You betrayed me by partaking in this, but worse you hurt my friends, my uncle, my husband, my mother, and my daughter by letting them think I was dead. You even hurt your own daughter. I won't save you from her twice, and when the words 'black box' come up, which I know they will, remember what you owe her and what you owe me." The defeat in his eyes as he realized what the WSB had turned him into almost made her feel bad for him, and she was glad when he took her up on his offer and walked away.

"That was nice of you sweetheart."

"Don't call me that, she loves you so much Dad. Not only did you let her think I was dead, but you left her to grieve on her own and let her believe that Ethan was your son. You let her mourn the only child she had left while simultaneously flaunting in her face that _you_ still had a child. Her heart's going to shatter and this time I don't know if there will be any way to put it back together again. Now let's go. We need to find her before she does something stupid. She's in a hell of a lot of pain, and rational thinking isn't going to be her forte," Robin was interrupted by the ring of a telephone.

"Scorpio. Okay, got it. We'll catch the first flight. Thanks, Spence, and I'm sorry for what's about to come down on us. I know you two have become close friends," Robert hung up and turned to Robin, "The Haunted Star. Your mother tracked down Faison. Before he died, he told her to find Frisco. She called Luke to find me in hopes of speeding up the contact. She's on her way from Caracas right now, so we best leave now if we're going to catch her."


	2. Chapter 2

_The Haunted Star_

"Robin? Darling, is it really you?"

The relief in her mother's voice tore Robin to pieces even more so knowing that it would not take her long to figure out the missing pieces of the puzzle and her world would forever change for the negative. Hadn't she had enough pain over the years? Especially over the last two months, the woman before her was not her mother. Two months of thinking her baby dead had worn her down, and it showed. She walked slowly toward her. She could tell her mother was on edge and that as much as she needed the comfort of having her baby in her arms, she needed to approach her slowly. Anna was wound so tightly that one false move could and would set a cascade in motion. Just as she reached her, she heard her mother call out to the one other person in the room that composed her world.

"Robert, oh Robert, you found her. You brought my baby home to me."

"Oh, Mom," Robin thought, "how are you going to get through this?" As the thought ran through her heard, she saw reality dawn on her mother.

"No. No. NO! You couldn't have! Of all the… No… You didn't! You didn't keep her from me…you didn't let me think she was dead…you didn't let me stand in that church...alone...and say good bye to her…you wouldn't…you just wouldn't…"

"Slim, may be you should sit down."

Luke reached out to touch her and as Robin knew would happen her mother finished piecing the puzzle together and the extent of the two men's treachery sent her into a tailspin. In an instant, her mother had her gun trained on Luke's head.

"Luv, put it down. You don't want to kill him."

"Do. Not. Call. Me. That," and just like that the gun moved to its next target.

Robin could see the indecision, pain, and anger in her mother's eyes and did the only thing she could think of, she closed the remaining distance between the two of them and placed her hand on her mother's face, "Mommy, don't. I know they deserve it, but you don't."

Her little girl. Her baby. She really was alive. Robin's voice, her touch, broke the trance Anna had been in since this nightmare had started and she collapsed into her daughter's arms sobbing, "I'm sorry baby…I'm so sorry…I shouldn't have believed it…I should have come for you…Oh, my baby…my baby…"

Robin took her into her arms the same way her mother had taken her into her own arms so many times and with one look stopped both men in their tracks as they moved to help her hold her mother's weight, choosing instead to sink to the ground with her and cradle her close as she was finally consumed by the grief she'd been holding at bay since the moment Patrick had walked up to her in the hall of the hospital, "Shh…it's okay Mommy. I'm here." She was so caught up in the moment that she missed the shadow. She missed the look of horror on Luke's face. She missed the look of confusion on her father's until he too saw the glint, but her mother's instinct to protect her child on hyperalert did not miss any of it. Robin, for her part, wouldn't miss her mother's well trained reflexes pushing her down to the ground as she took her shot, nor would she miss the deafening bang of the shot the assailant got off before falling dead to her mother's excellent marksmanship, nor would she miss the shift in her mother's weight as it hit her. She'd be forever haunted by the glassy look in her mother's eyes as their gazes met.

"Mom!" Somehow, Robin made her limbs move as she shoved her mother off of her turning her on to her back to inspect the wound, "Dad. Get me something, anything to put pressure on the wound and call 911. Mom, stay with me," Robin suddenly understood her mother's frustration on so many occasions when her father didn't move, "DAD!" She wasn't about to let shock kill her mother.

"Robin."

"I'm here Mom. Just hold on."

"Va…Va…Vad…Va…dzel," the effort it took for mother to say the single word seemed more than she could take, and Robin was left to wonder its importance as her mother lost consciousness.

_General Hospital – ER_

Robin had a new empathy for the family members of her patients. She'd been allowed to ride with her mother in the ambulance, but had been treated as no more than an obstacle. She was a doctor. She knew what was going on, and still every bit of information had to be fought for tooth and nail. She couldn't even begin to imagine the worry, fear, and frustration of the average family. She ran along the stretcher until strong arms stopped her from following it into the cubicle.

"Robin? Robin, you can't go in there…come sit down," Steve Webber's astonished and concerned voice tried to break through to her.

After what had just happen, he was the last person she wanted to see. She better than anyone knew that the concept of "sins of the father" was unfair, but at the moment the only thing she saw when she looked in his face was his mother taking the shot at Anna, "Stay away from my mother. Where's Patrick?"

The slump of his shoulders let her know that he'd been informed of just how Anna Devane had found herself in the Emergency Room on this particular night, but there was something else bothering him.

"Where is he?"

"He and Emma haven't been seen since right before Helena Cassadine and Jerry Jacks' bodies turned up."

Fear gripped her heart momentarily, but then a light bulb went off in her head and she knew exactly what her mother had been trying to tell her before she lost consciousness, "I need to make a phone call. Please have Epiphany come find me when there's any news on my mother's condition, and even though I know what Heather did isn't your fault. I mean it, Steve. Stay away from my mother." With that she walked away, leaving Steve to wonder how she'd react when she found it that it was his fault, that he was the one who'd released his mother back into society.


	3. Chapter 3

_Anna's Hospital Room_

"Luv, I mean Anna. I'm sorry. I hope you know that…whatever you may think of me, and I know I deserve it; please know that it was never my intention to hurt you. I thought I was doing right by both of you. I thought as long as I played along Robin wouldn't be hurt, and I thought it was better for face the pain of losing her for a while rather than forever. I need you to know that the plan was always to bring her home to you. I see know that regardless of my intentions, what I did was hurt you in the most unforgivable of ways…as they say, the road to hell…"

Robin stood in the door to her mother's room indignant. She couldn't stand the excuses anymore. They always fell so hollow, "What are you doing in here?"

"Epiphany, took pity on me."

"I wonder why. If anyone deserves pity, it's Mom."

"Epiphany is a good judge of character, Robin."

"Oh, really?"

"Don't get me wrong, she sees me for who I am and I know full well Anna's not the only one with a target on my back. It's your mother's; compassion is what she deserves, and closure, never pity. She's a strong, capable woman not a damsel in distress. I guess that's what I always loved about her. Even when the world said differently, she knew she was my equal and hell deep down inside I knew it too. Sometimes I wonder if that's what kept us apart. She was so damn proud. Despite what I said, I wanted her to come to me after Italy. I wanted to be her white knight, but she never came…"

"You walked out on her! And not for the last time might I add…"

"And then Holly came along, and even though she didn't touch me like your mother did, she let me save her…she always let me save her. Even now…why couldn't Anna?"

"Dad, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you attempt to justify why you did, and I'm sure as hell not about to let you throw this on Mom. Yes, she's strong and proud and at times even arrogant and vain, but she's also tender hearted and very easily hurt. You know even back when she was Luv, there was a sadness about her. It wasn't until I met you that I realized it had a name, Robert Scorpio. Every time you two reconnect it ends badly, and you move on while she stays behind devastated. This time, though, you went too far. She's shattered, and I'm going to do everything in my power to put her back together and then, as soon as she's released, we're leaving Port Charles, and if you ever really loved her, you won't follow. She's not going to forgive you for this, I can tell you as a mother that it's not going to happen. As a daughter? I'm telling you I'm not going to subject my mother to listening to your pointless explanations. You need to leave before she wakes up. Go look for absolution somewhere else."

_JFK_

Robert walked past Robin and straight into the beginning of his own personal hell. Cesar Faison had won at the end of the day. He'd wondered from the get go what the point of involving the WSB and specifically him had been, Faison never did things without a reason. Now he knew, he'd walked straight into the trap. He'd shown that when all was said and done his own foolish pride was worth more to him than his family. He'd broken Anna in the belief that he had the power to save them all. Stupid, stupid, man. Robin was right; this was the one thing Anna would never, ever forgive. Hell she'd never even understand it. She trusted him, and he let her down. There would be no final mission for them. There would be no Mai-Tai's, no beach, no growing grey. Knowing that, there was really only one option left. Return to Dr. Frankenstein. He'd go back to the WSB, an organization he'd allowed to destroy him and in turn destroy the only two people he'd ever really loved, and wait for the day his own bullet came.

"Flight 786 to Paris, France now boarding…"

_General Hospital_

"Robin?"

"Mom, don't try to talk. Luckily, Heather was as bad a shot as she was crazy, and you're going to be fine, but you still need to take it easy."

"Patrick and Emma…"

"I know Mom. I'm not sure how much you remember, but you managed to say Vadzel before you lost consciousness. When Steve said they hadn't been heard from since right before Helena and Jerry's deaths, I knew you'd sent them away to keep them safe. I already Skyped with them. It's amazing how much Emma's grown and changed in just two months."

"Coming home?"

"No. Patrick and I talked it over. It's time for a new beginning Mom. As soon as you're released, we'll meet up with them at Alex and Dimitri's. Then once you're fully recuperated, we can decide where to go from there."

"Robert?"

"He's not coming back, Mom." Robin considered withholding his visit from her mother, but thought better of it, "He was here earlier, but we talked, and he's gone."

"Good."

"Yeah, I think the remaining players in this game are going to lay low from here on out. I don't think anyone of them wants to give you any further reason to settle things."

"That's over. Those left have to face their own demons, just as I have to face my own…I never wanted you to see that part of me Robin. It's one of the reasons I created Luv in the first place. Yes, I need to keep you safe, but I also needed you to be able to look up to me. You know, Emma's taken to calling me Luv now. I certainly hope I never fail her as I failed you."

"I do look up to you Mom. I'm grateful that Emma has you in her life. You were an amazing mother. Somehow you managed to be my best friend without ever taking of the mothering hat, that's going to come in handy as she grows up. Like I told Patrick, Emma's already cooler than me. She get's that from you, and we're both going to need you. I know I didn't always show it, especially right before you and Dad…," Robin thought better of going there and got to the point instead, "but I always felt so lucky to be your daughter. You were always there to save me, to really, truly save me. The big picture was never enough for you. You always managed to take down the bad guy and not forget about the band-aid. No one could hurt me Mom, you didn't let them, and you won't let them hurt Emma either."

"But I did let them hurt you both. You were taken, and Emma's world collapsed, because you're my daughter, and I believed them. My heart was screaming at me that you couldn't be dead, but I didn't listen. I didn't come for you, baby, and I'm so sorry," Anna felt the pain and regret would overwhelm her. How on Earth did she not see past the ruse?

"Mom, but you did come for me. The moment you knew I was still out there, you took no prisoners," Robin swallowed passed the lump in her throat. "I know you blame yourself for a lot of things regarding me, but I need you to understand that the good outweighed the bad, and no matter what I knew and still know that you would move Heaven and Earth for me. Not once did I doubt your love for me, and that's the greatest gift a mother can give a child. Now please, for once let me take care of you. We have a long road ahead of us, and personally I can't wait to see my husband and my daughter, so get some rest so we can get out of here," Robin soothed back her mother's hair as her mother had so often done for her, and smiled as her mother drifted off.

Anna went to sleep knowing, perhaps for the first time since her own childhood, that things were truly going to be okay. For the first time, in a long time she dreamed of what tomorrow would bring without dread. She was no longer going to survive. She was going to live.

_The End_


End file.
